Chapter 4 - Return to the House of Shadows
The storm had escalated into a full-blown gale by the time we returned to our home at 4:00 a.m. The house stood tall and forbidding against the black skyline, looking less like a family residence and more like a mausoleum.
Power lines were down across the neighborhood, plunging the entire street into total darkness. Rain lashed against the windshield like thrown gravel.
“Emma, listen to me,” I said, turning to my daughter in the backseat. I handed her a heavy flashlight and a silver cross necklace I had kept in my purse. “Stay in the car. Keep the engine running and lock all doors. If you see anything near the windows, blow the horn continuously. Do you understand?”
Emma nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Please be careful, Mommy. Don't let it hug you.”
Daniel and I stepped out into the freezing rain, armed with a sledgehammer, a bag of rock salt from the garage, and a container of lighter fluid.
We pushed open the front door. The interior of the house was suffocatingly humid and smelled overpoweringly of damp earth and decay. Every floorboard beneath our boots groaned as if under immense pressure.
“The central hearth,” Daniel whispered, shining his beam toward the living room fireplace. “The original 1930s brickwork is behind the modern drywall.”
We stepped into the living room, but as soon as Daniel swung the sledgehammer against the drywall, the temperature in the room plummeted to sub-zero. Our breath blossomed into thick white clouds.
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From the hallway ceiling, from the walls, from beneath the floorboards—a chorus of low, overlapping whispers erupted:
“You brought her back... You brought the warmth back...”
